The Unclad Soul

OPINION PAGE © 2024 Timothy Moody The world has forgotten Gaza and the Palestinian people. Democracies like Canada, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Ireland, Germany, and, tragically, shamefully, the United States have all left the Palestinians in the hands of a monster. Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his hostile, extremist Likud party have never wanted anything  but to destroy the Palestinian people and take complete control of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. And that is precisely what they are doing.  The deadly Hamas attack on an outdoor music concert in Israel last October gave Netanyahu the perfect excuse to begin the extermination of the Palestinians and the land grab he has always wanted. Palestine is supposed to be protected by international law. But Israel has violated that law again and again since it was given status in 1948. And the world has done nothing to stop it. Like Trump, Netanyahu obeys only the laws he chooses....

Anyone who follows my posts knows how much I love movies, Netflix series, HBO, and so forth.  I often think how remarkable these films are in reflecting so clearly our world, our society, and our own lives. The lessons they offer can be transformative.  In the 2006 movie, “Little Miss Sunshine,” we meet Olive (Abigail Breslin), a precocious and darling 7 year old who dreams of winning a beauty pageant.  She is not the beauty queen type though. For one thing she is too smart. She also wears big clunky glasses. And she has a round little tummy and an awkward run.  But no child could be more sweet, or more lovable.  She belongs to the Hoover family, a cross between the Beverly Hillbillies and the McCallister family in “Home Alone.” Dad (Greg Kinnear) is a struggling, uptight, luckless motivational speaker. Mom (Toni Collette) is a protective, cigarette smoking nurturer. Brother Dwayne (Paul Dano) is a cynical nerd obsessed with Nietzsche and becoming a test pilot f...

  The night, with its stars set in the darkness above, silent in the mystery that is space, shines as a messenger of light. The sun, fickle, some days glaring, burning, and some days shedding warmth against the cold, has its purpose. The clouds, hazy and swift at times, like crumpled tissue floating across the sky, and at other times motionless, taking odd shapes, a unicorn, a face, a mountain of snow, offering relief from the summer heat, or billowing and turbulent warning us of threatening weather ahead. The earth rotates without our notice. Caught up in the tedium of our lives, we take for granted the miracle of our planet. Its landscapes and oceans, its highlands and peaks, its trees and flowers, the green grass, the yellow fields, the clear streams, and rugged paths. Majestic. Stunning. Mesmerizing. Awesome. All of it. Every rock and petal, every clump of earth and blade of grass, every jagged crevice and smooth hill. Astonishing in their place of function. Healing in the gl...

Highway Unicorn  The process of love is, as someone has well said, a journey not a destination.  It is, isn’t it? That puts it in such comforting terms. For me at least. Love is a journey.  We rarely realize this. How many marriages turn sickly, die, because those in them think love is a destination? How many parents have lost their kids because of this? How many friends, how many lovers, how many siblings have been shut out, rejected, turned away because we thought love is some kind of destination? An end? A final piece of work that was completed. In a ceremony. In a promise. In a hope.  I think of Lady Gaga’s “Highway Unicorn: Road to Love.” It’s a wild song. It gives love expanse, room, a freeway. Love is a freewheeling emotion. A power deep in the soul. It burns. It weeps. It sings and laughs. It waits. It longs. It goes all the way.  As Gaga sings it,  “We can be strong, we can be strong Out on this lonely run, on the road to love”  Don’t we all w...

In Memoriam  Dr. Bill Craig January 1, 2020 In the Hebrew Bible, we see from the life of Moses, and the Psalmist, Isaiah and others , concern for the problem of living rather than the problem of dying.   Their primary interest was not how to escape death, but rather, how to sanctify life. Bill modeled that kind of wisdom.  The brilliant novelist Louis L'Amour, who wrote bestselling books about the American West, what he called “frontier stories,” basically said the same thing. He wrote, “The trail is the thing, not the end of the trail.” No one attempted to sanctify life and get more out of the trail than Bill Craig. He was a deep thinker, a gifted veterinarian, a rugged and unbreakable man with the kindest heart and the purest motives.  He was a loving and devoted husband, father, and grandfather. Karen, Shalor and Melissa, Kellan, Nolan and Carter, were his world. They meant everything to him. I guess he had faults, but I don’t remember any of them....

There are words from Brandi Carlile’s song, “The Story,” that I might sing, and perhaps you, too. “All of these lines across my face Tell you the story of who I am So many stories of where I've been And how I got to where I am But these stories don't mean anything When you've got no one to tell them to” You don’t have to be single or alone to feel the depth of those words. Someone in a longtime marriage or relationship might feel them, too. The voyage through life takes each one of us through an assortment of experiences. Some of them ennoble us. Some crush us. Some lift us beyond ourselves and carry us into the lives of those who need us. And some carry us to those we need. Some experiences are burdens. Others ease and encourage us. Some leave us baffled and unsure. Some build confidence within us and are so affirming that we grow in substance, in courage, in tenderness, and sympathy. As we age, the lines in our faces can represent the hurts we have not yet resolved. Or t...

The Republican hypocrisy of Texas governor Greg Abbott and Florida governor Ron DeSantis has now reached such levels of contempt and indignity that both should be run out of office. Both governors have made wild threats to local school boards, administrators, and teachers for wanting to keep their faculties and students safe. They are forbidding mask mandates and other safety measures for schools, which ought to be the legal choice of any local community. At the same time, Abbott and DeSantis are asking the federal government for help with the Covid virus and its variants. Both Texas and Florida are running out of medical staff and ICU space to handle the growing increase of Covid patients. Somewhere in all of this voters have to decide if they want to live in a country where political leaders actually govern in the best interests of their citizens, or if they want to be ruled by political lightweights and grandstanders who cater to elite investors in their political fortunes but manip...